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[Makkal]

In other online communities I’m part of, moderators sometimes call suspensions of specific, problematic topics. That is, for a week or two weeks, threads about that topic are always locked while posts regarding it are removed.

What typically happens is that after a while the community either moves on from a ‘hot topic,’ or tempers or bad feeling have had time to cool a bit so discussions don't go south.

Merely a suggestion.

[Esna Pitoojee]

In the past, there have been times when entire threads were closed with a message that suggested the entire thread was so deeply mired in moddable issues it was doomed from the beginning. I'd suggest that there's an implicit suggestion there that simply re-starting another thread will not help - a tacit, if not explicit, "suspension" of that topic.

In this case, the original "parent" thread was locked with an explicit suggestion from a mod that the point of discussion was a valuable one, and that it could very well continue to be discussed elsewhere. Whether the mods opt to reconsider that decision is up to them.

Personally, I would suggest that this particular topic not be "suspended" for longer than a few days, as it is a perennial one I have heard discussed for years and will not easily cool with time. We have seen the mods be extraordinarily conservative with regards to certain hot-button topics in the past that spawned multiple modded threads (see: the discussion on Caldari and dev bias in the leadup and aftermath of the Caldari Prime event), and I would urge them to let this one play itself out as well; as that topic did, I suspect that as the initial "trigger event" fades, so will the hottest feelings, but they will never truly go away and simply suspending the topic will not only fail to make them do so, but also "bottle them up" to be released when the topic is "unlocked" again.

[Silver Night]

It may not be a bad idea. In general (other than completely banned topics) we tend to focus more on poster behavior than on topics. On the other hand, we do sometimes get topics that seem to incite more people than usual.

[Ava Starfire]

* Ava Starfire refrains from making jokes about suspension in a BDSM sense...

In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure temp forum bans do more or less = suspencion, yes?

[Silver Night]

The difference is, those are of a specific member (though if they are the problematic topic, it might have the same effect) while this would be a broader topic.

[Lyn Farel]

If I remember correctly, we had a few heated topics that got locked and then a new one was permitted to be reopen as long as people kept it more cool-headed.

[Silver Night]

Right. That's actually, for most topics, our standard procedure. But there isn't any explicit cooling off period, which I think is what Makkal is talking about.